Via Inkblots (via @adropofwisdom)
Inkbots’ forthcoming October 2010 release Whispers from the wild is a collection of short stories for young readers about animals in India. Each story, illustrated in watercolour by Dutch artist Isa Esasi and written by Geetanjali Krishna, is in the voice of a different animal, and tells the reader a little about the beauty and the drama of its life. Key facts mentioned about the animal’s habitat, diet, habits and adaptations are based upon current scientific knowledge.The rest is all imagination…The stories address the basic fact that with the current rate of extinction on our planet, soon a day may come when the Tiger may leave his jungle forever, and the Blue Whale, the sea. What would this mean to you and I? How will it affect us if the last Lion Tailed Macaque or Malabar Spotted Civet were to die? Or if Rhinos ceased to walk through Assam’s grasslands, and the alpine meadows of Ladakh became bereft of Wild Yaks?
Whispers from the wild tries to show that we can’t measure this question in scientific terms alone. It does not matter if the reader has never seen a Dugong or heard the cry of a Forest Owlet. It does not matter if the Himalayan Wolf or the Dhole has no direct bearing at all on the reader’s life. But if these animals were to vanish from the face of this planet, we’d all be poorer for not having had a chance to know them…